


Walks Between the Lines

by jayemgriffin



Series: Saga of the Unicorn [1]
Category: The Dresden Files Roleplaying Game
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-26
Updated: 2019-08-26
Packaged: 2020-09-27 09:30:26
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,156
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20405497
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jayemgriffin/pseuds/jayemgriffin
Summary: This is why we don't mix alcohol and magic, kids. Sometimes you end up becoming the capital-U Unicorn and you don't even remember it.





	Walks Between the Lines

### August 10th, 2017

It’s late - later than it should be, but Jess is awake. She’s not _ afraid _ of falling asleep, exactly. Just… if she doesn’t get any rest because she’s running around in crazy dreams all night, why not stay awake and get something done? (She’s not really getting anything done except watching the Bears get their ass kicked in preseason, but that’s not the point.)

There’s something niggling in the back of her skull - something MK had said last week, about some weird collective dream that had included a bunch of Brighter Future Society people. It sounded like that had happened the night of the interrogation. Right about the time her own freaky dreams had started. Was there something there? Is chaos somehow leaking into their sleep? God knows they’re spending enough time around it. Or some kind of magic virus that was spreading around, infecting their subconscious. Wasn’t there a mushroom spore or something that did that? She’d definitely read something about mind-control mushrooms or ants or whatever. She should see if she could find that article again. She should…

Her head slumps forward onto her chest as her eyes finally slide shut. She wakes up in the morning with a vicious crick in her neck and a blurry memory of mushrooms. 

### August 14th, 2017

Jess watches Darcy leave her office with equal parts fondness and worry. She might’ve been Darcy’s age once, but God, she was never that _ young _. The urge to shield Darcy, to protect her from what she doesn’t know she’s doing almost overwhelms Jess.

The look in Darcy’s eyes when she talks about Dahlia just about breaks her damn heart. She’s sure that Darcy has read all the fairy tales, where the pure-hearted young girl breaks the hold of the fae with love, but Jess has read the incident reports. The tales are exceptional - that’s why they’re told. More often, mortals die pining after their enchanted loved ones, or sell their own souls in exchange. If the Hunt is what it sounds like, a soft, wide-eyed kid like her isn’t worth dick to them.

As for Dahlia… there’s a strong instinct within Jess to say that she’s made her bed and can lie in it. It’s not a problem she can fix. She tries to imagine saying that to Darcy, though, and she _ can’t _. There’s enough in the world already that’ll shatter her idealism; Jess can’t bring herself to add to that list. 

For a split second, she thinks - her dad had been right. At her heart, she’s weak, and that’ll end up killing her if she’s lucky. If she’s not lucky, it’ll end up killing someone else. But she can’t do anything about that right now.

What she _ can _ do something about is this Erlking dude and his attempts at starting a new court. Even if Darcy is (more than) a bit biased, Jess knows that a new fae court won’t make anything any better. She knows the potential targets, which is good, but she needs to know _ more _ about them if she’s going to be at all helpful. (For instance: what the sacred fuck is a water panther?) Since her erstwhile files have apparently failed her, she waggles the mouse to wake up her computer, and starts typing stuff into Google. 

### August 21st, 2017

The dreams won’t fucking stop, no matter what she does. It’s been weeks since she’s had a decent night of sleep at this point. She is _ really _ too tired to deal with people as soon as the phone switches on at 7:00, but regardless, there it is. Ringing at her, like an asshole. She glares at the phone, but when that doesn’t seem to affect it, she answers.

“Good morning, you’ve reached the Chicago Office of Supernatural Affairs. Associate Director Majeski speaking… Sir, what exactly did you _ expect _ to happen when you put “necromancer” on your tax returns? Yes, of course we’re going to investigate that. No, COSA is not affiliated with the White Council. I’m aware you didn’t actually manage to bring anyone back to life. Grave robbery is still a crime, sir. Okay. Okay. That’s not physically possible, sir. Okay. I’m terminating this call now. You have a good one.”

She hangs up, and the phone rings again almost immediately. She closes her eyes, exhales, and picks it up.

“Good morning, you’ve reached the Chicago Office of Supernatural Affairs. Associate Director Majeski speaking...” 

### August 26th, 2017

“Good afternoon, you’ve reached the Chicago Office of Supernatural Affairs. Associate Director Majeski speaking.”

The voice on the other end is deep and harsh, and there’s static prickling in the background. Jess winces as it hits her ears. The connection must be terrible. “Do you know yet?”

“Do I know what?” She takes another long swig of the burnt-ass liquid that’s produced by the office “coffee”maker. She can already tell she’s gonna need it for this call.

“Do you know what you are?”

“As I said, this is the Chicago Office of Supernatural Affairs, or COSA. We are pleased to serve as a liaison between the supernatural community and the government of the City of Chicago. I am the associate director of COSA. Did you need assistance?”

“You will not be able to hide for much longer.”

“Okay, that’s... vague and kind of menacing. Can I get your name?”

“I am one who can see truly, but not the only one.”

“Sorry, we can’t record an appellation without a first or last name. If someone or something is threatening you, I can file an anonymous incident report.”

“Seven days. Seven dreams. Seven visions that may come to pass. This is a gift, and a warning. Beware, Guardian.” 

“Okay, I’m gonna need a little more det -” Whoever it was had hung up. Jess stared at the phone, mind stubbornly refusing to process anything that had just happened.

Time for more coffee.

_Sometime during the first night… _

It had taken her way too long to fall asleep. She’d been having enough wild dreams lately; she didn’t need the help of that weirdass call or the perfectly moonless sky or the people she’d caught looking at her oddly as she walked to her car. Though she might have been making some of that up.

Her eyes flutter open, but she’s immediately aware that she’s dreaming. She’s not in the dream, not really. Instead, she’s looking down at a group of figures gathering in a clearing. It looks like they’re sculpted half in shadow, half in smoky glass. She can’t make out any of their features very well. Some of them are humanoid; some run around on four legs, foaming at the mouth; some swoop down on wide, batlike wings. Others… aren’t shaped like anything that she has a reference for. The two-legged ones are carrying long sticks, and it looks like they might be talking to each other. There’s a buzz of anticipation in the air. 

A chill trickles down her spine as something steps out of the edge of the woods. It’s a figure like the others, but much, much taller. It’s wearing a cloak that brushes the grass, and two massive antlers are sprouting from its - from _ his _ \- head. As he takes his place at the head of the crowd, something metallic glints in the low light, and Jess realizes. 

Those aren’t sticks; those are _ spears _.

She wakes up. 

### August 27th, 2017

She’s been jumping at shadows all day. Stupid fucking dreams, putting crazy ideas in her head. Even in her office, where she knows every file cabinet and untidily stacked paper by heart, there had been dark figures flickering in the corner of her vision. But then, hallucinations are a symptom of insomnia. Aren’t they?

She’s on the train; driving herself had seemed like a bad idea. The weight of a gaze settles onto her back. Someone’s staring at her. She’s absolutely positive. After the fucking night and day she’s had… She turns, a harsh retort ready on her lips - and sees a very small boy sitting on his mother’s lap and looking at her like she’s the moon.

Her words die in her throat. She can’t say any of that shit to a kid. She gives him a small, tired smile instead, and his eyes light up. He starts tugging at his mother’s sleeve and pointing to Jess, but she just makes soothing noises and goes back to talking on the phone. Jess waves at him when she gets off at her stop, and she’s pretty sure he loses it. Good. She really needed that laugh.

_Sometime during the second night…_

Jess comes to with thick, lush grass tickling her face. There’s water burbling not far off, with the gentle rustle of animals moving through the undergrowth. She sits up, confused but not alarmed. She’s in another forest, but this one is remarkably tranquil. It reminds her very much of a city park - even more so when her eyes fall on a fountain not far off.

She gets up and starts walking towards it. It’s beautiful, gleaming white and burnished gold in the twilight. Water spills out and flows down in a small stream. There’s animals clustered around it; Jess can see a few deer, some kind of large bird, and little darting things that look like rabbits. None of them are drinking. As she gets closer, she realizes that the water looks strangely cloudy. 

She’s not trying to be quiet, but the animals don’t scatter when she approaches. A couple of them actually come closer. She absentmindedly pats a fox on the head as she kneels down to get a closer look. There’s something thick and chalky swirling in the water, so she dips her hand in to see what it feels like. As soon as she touches it, though, it turns sparkling clear, and the change spreads down the stream and up the fountain.

The animals fall on it immediately, drinking their fill and then slipping back into the bushes. Frowning, Jess cups a hand and lifts some of it to her mouth. It tastes fine - better than fine. She sits back on her heels and watches as the last of the wildlife vanishes. Rather abruptly, she realizes that while they’d surrounded the stream on all sides, every last one had left the same way - directly across from her. The hair on the back of her neck stands up as she turns around very slowly. She’s looking straight into the eyes of a shadowy horned figure, one she recognizes immediately.

She wakes up. 

### August 28th, 2017

“Why does this taste like garbage?” Jess grumbles, dumping her coffee out into the office sink. It usually tastes like garbage, true, but at least it’s vaguely palatable garbage. Shanti’s probably ordered some new organic nonsense. She puts on a fresh pot.

“Um. Miss Majeski?” Danielle’s intern appears in her office door. Jess had finally coerced them into helping with her file search. 

“Jess is fine,” she informs them, _ again _, waving them in. 

“Um. I couldn’t find anything? I checked everywhere you said, and there’s nothing on ‘Erlking.’” 

“Dammit,” she mutters, taking another sip of coffee. Nope. Still terrible. She leans back and dumps the rest of it into the desiccated ficus next to her desk. “Ah well. Worth a look. Thanks anyway.” They scurry off, and Jess frowns at her file cabinets, disappointed. 

There’s a prickling along the back of her neck. Someone’s in her office. She whips around, but no one’s there. She opens the door, and no one’s there either. Funny. She could’ve sworn… 

She sits back down and starts typing at her computer, but the nagging feeling of being watched never quite subsides.

_Sometime during the third night..._

Howls and shouts echo in the ashen sky. There’s so many _ things _ in the forest now that she can’t tell where all the rustling is coming from - left, right, behind her? The half-light seeping through the thick foliage doesn’t help at all. All she can do is keep running. 

It’s not fast enough. They’re gaining on her. She can’t look back. She can’t lose a heartbeat’s worth of time, can’t miss a single step or they’ll - 

There’s a leap and a growl from behind her. Teeth sink deep into her flank, sharp and burning. She doesn’t have enough breath to scream, only to keep running, so she throws herself forward and hears the wet ripping sound of her flesh tearing away into its mouth. She ought to feel more pain than she does; that must be the adrenaline running through her blood and splattering onto the grass.

There’s running water up ahead - she can smell it. She throws herself into the stream, the creatures hot on her heels. She’s a marginally better swimmer than they are, even with the cold water flowing into her wound. The current shoves her downstream, and she goes with it, praying it’ll throw them off. She reaches out for the salvation of the muddy bank, but two spear points slice into her field of vision. Her heart turns to lead and her tongue to ash. There’s no escape.

She wakes up. 

### August 29th, 2017

The lousy omni-awareness is back, but the claustrophobia is new. She hates working with her door open, but as soon as she closes it, she gets a rush of anxiety and the urge to bolt becomes even stronger. Even with it open, she has to get up every ten minutes or so and just pace like a caged animal. Her body wants to sleep so badly, but her mind won’t let her relax.

Her work cell rings; it’s the Parks Department. She answers it without breaking stride. “Majeski.”

“Hey, Jess, we found something weird up in Washington Square. It might be nothing, but…”

“No worries,” she answers, grabbing her keys and her field kit. “I can be there in ten.”

“You sure? We can wait if you’re busy.”

“Nah, I’d rather check it out and make sure it’s alright.” They’re probably right. It is probably nothing, but she _ needs _ to get out of here, and being in some kind of green space sounds ridiculously tempting. Even in her car, crawling through downtown traffic with the windows down, she’s feeling better. Not good, but better. She’ll take it.

_Sometime during the fourth night... _

Jess is surrounded. She still can’t make out what’s threatening her, but she is far past caring. She knows deep inside her quivering heart that none of them will rest until she’s dead. That’ll be soon. She’s trapped and they all know it; she’s just waiting for something to start the final fight.

As though it could read her thoughts, something leaps at her. She doesn’t know what kind of creature it is; the fear is clawing at her mind, darkening the edges of her vision. All she knows it that she will do anything it takes to escape. And right now, “anything” means digging her bare hands into the thing’s chest and yanking it apart with all her strength. Its breastbone snaps and its ribcage pops open like a cracker. Shards of bone and bits of flesh go flying, splattering onto her face and throat.

The rest of them hesitate. She seizes the chance to turn on them, bloody and desperate. A deep, rumbling cry rips out of her chest. One of the shadows, perhaps braver than its fellows, makes the terrible mistake of charging her with its spear. She ducks the onslaught easily and slams into it. She can feel its spine crack against her shoulder and it goes limp. A foolish, broken doll, a little china harlequin. 

The figure next to that one is lifting a crimson-painted horn to its lips, maybe trying to call for help. It doesn’t matter; she snaps its neck before it can make a sound. That’s enough, it’s just enough; she can see the soothing darkness of the trees through a gap in their line barely big enough for her to fit through.

She runs. 

And then she wakes up. 

### August 30th, 2017

In her defense, Red Bull and coffee had sounded like a much better idea at four-thirty in the morning when she’d woken up drenched in sweat with a racing heartbeat. She’d known right away that she couldn’t have gone back to sleep even if she’d wanted to. It had been a perfectly logical decision.

Now, though, she’s sitting at her desk and her hands are shaking so hard she can’t type. Every sentence takes her twice as long to fidget through, and then delete the unwanted characters, and then re-delete all the keys she’d hit while trying to delete… Filing was absolutely out of the question. She’d nearly torn three files in half trying to get them into the cabinets. Fieldwork was a distant absurdity. If she tried to hold a gun like this, she’d end up shooting her own foot off.

(Maybe it wasn’t all caffeine, not initially. Maybe some of it was adrenaline that never quite seemed to ebb, and maybe some was her natural reaction to ice-cold terror.)

She swears to try that 5-Hour Energy stuff next time and sets out to construct another wobbly sentence.

_ Sometime during the fifth night… _

Blood is dripping out of her and onto the grass, but at least it’s starting to clot up now. Running is absolutely out of the question; she’s limited to a slow, clumsy walk, one leg dragging slightly. She’s leaving a trail that a blind three-year-old could follow, but she can’t stop. She knows with a dull certainty that she’s only prolonging the inevitable at this point. Part of her almost hopes they’ll find her soon. She is so, so tired.

She pushes through a particularly thick bit of brush and stumbles into a clearing. Her head jerks up and she stumbles backwards, scanning for danger, but all she sees is a woman sitting in a cluster of golden furze. Her head lifts, and she looks right at Jess. Jess doesn’t know what she looks like - it’s like she’s looking at her through water - but she knows without a shadow of a doubt that she’s beautiful. Jess looks like shit and she knows it, but the woman smiles at her and opens her arms. Jess could cry from joy. She stumbles over to the woman, almost falling in her hurry, and the woman gestures for her to kneel down. Jess obeys, or maybe her legs just finally give out. She reaches out and guides Jess to lay down, head in her lap. Something in Jess’s mind quiets as she feels the silken fabric of the woman’s dress under her head. 

Soft hands are working over her scalp, picking out bobby pins and unwinding hair ties until her blood-caked hair is loose and spread across the woman’s lap. Her fingers comb through it gently, and Jess finally lets the tension out of her body. This is so good. She hasn’t been safe like this, waking or sleeping, for a very long time. The evening air wraps around them, still and soothing. Her eyes drift closed as she hears a sweet voice humming a vague half-tune. 

She doesn’t even realize anyone else is in the clearing until there’s a spearhead buried between her ribs. She looks up at the woman, vision blurred by the shock of betrayal, but she can’t see her face. Why can’t she see her face? The black fog is swallowing up her vision again. Everything blurs, and darkens, and all she can feel is the blade in her side and the hot tears on her cheeks - 

\- and then she wakes up. 

### August 31st, 2017

Her cheeks are wet, and there’s a giant damp spot on her pillow. It’s not sweat, this time; those are tears. She doesn’t know _ why _ she’s weeping like a child. She hasn’t cried this hard - well, maybe ever. Not when her dad died, not when her mom forgot her name, not when Kate moved away.

She goes into the office anyway - she feels physically fine, and she’s not stupid enough to drug herself up again - but from time to time, she’ll find herself crying. There’s no reason behind it; she’ll be running the coffee machine or clearing a paper jam or on the phone with a client, and her face will feel wet all of a sudden. Tears. Every single time. She has to be going nuts.

She pulls up a list of local psychiatrists on her computer, but closes the window when salty drops splash the backs of her hands. This is ridiculous. She wipes her eyes harshly and gets back to work.

_ Sometime during the sixth night... _

Awareness hits her like a brick to the ribs, and she immediately wishes it hadn’t. The pain is overwhelming, but the universe is cruel and it’s not quite overwhelming enough to push her back into unconsciousness. She’s being carried somewhere, and not gently. Her limp body is jostled around, and the indescribable mess of pain starts to define itself. 

There are things inside her body that aren’t supposed to be there. She can feel her flesh enveloping metal. It takes her far too many agonizing moments to realize that those are spearheads. Some are still attached to the shafts, and their motion and weight tears her wounds open further.

There’s different kinds of pain layered under that, she realizes. She preferred not knowing the distinctions. Her bones are shifting in ways they’re not meant to shift. Her mind takes stock of her body almost automatically. Broken hip, broken collarbone, shattered femur, dislocated shoulder… (Another piece of evidence for an unfeeling God: her spine and her neck are both still intact.) It keeps spiraling, like an Inferno where Dante forgot to stop writing, and every single injury hurts in its own way. She should not have the capacity for this much agony, but she does, she does, and it just keeps going. 

Her punctured lungs expel one last blood-speckled breath, and finally, she’s dead.

And then she wakes up. 

### September 1st, 2017

Jess falls out of bed and only barely makes it to the bathroom before she’s vomiting, hard. Her lungs and throat feel like they’re burning. This isn’t hangover-vomiting; it feels more like the stomach flu she’d caught in fourth grade, but worse in every possible way. Every time she heaves, she can feel the room spin around her, and pain lances through her sides. 

She is sorely tempted to take a sick day, but then her phone buzzes at her. One hundred and three unread emails over the past six hours. Goddamnit. She just about manages to peck out a very reluctant compromise email, letting Mr. Ball know that she’s running late today. 

_Sometime during the seventh night…_

She should be dead. She wants to be dead. She isn’t dead.

The grass beneath her is meticulously trimmed. It feels like a mocking imitation of the forest floor, and a sudden, irrational burst of anger hits her in the chest. She scrambles to her feet and looks around with disdain.

She’s fenced in, but the fence is surprisingly low. If she wanted, she could just step over it. As she moves forward, though, she feels something tug against her neck. The hard edge of something metal digs into her skin – not hurting her, just restraining.

She reaches up to touch it, and her hands run along deceptively delicate swirls of filigree and faceted stones. She can’t see her collar, but somehow, she knows the colors of it – deep gray and sapphire blue – and she realizes, with a shock, that it’s not a collar. It’s a crown. Someone’s bent it around her neck and affixed a chain that ties her to a sturdy wooden post. The chain is the same steely color as the crown, and fine though it is, she can’t break it with all her strength. She doesn’t dare try to break the crown; something deep within her knows that it’s not possible. It’s probably magic. It feels like magic.

Baffled, she turns back to the post, wondering if she can yank the chain out of the wood. It’s not a post, though; it’s the trunk of an oak tree, almost completely shorn of branches. As she runs a hand over the weather-roughened bark, something starts materializing. She snatches her hand back as though she’s been burned.

It’s a human-shaped figure, suspended upside-down from the trunk by one foot, the other tucked behind its knee and hands tied behind its back. She watches, half fascinated and half suspicious, as it solidifies, filling in a squarish form and sharply carved features that look eerily familiar. Then its eyes snap open and lock with hers as she recognizes herself and the world quakes and turns upside down. She’s looking into her own eyes, tumbling head over heels, screaming for no one to hear –

Her eyes fly open, but it doesn’t feel like waking up.

**Author's Note:**

> Written after Jess assumed the Mantle of the Unicorn in the dream world.


End file.
